to pay for it.

Do "China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others" routinely read and post on Trump's social media?

What an idiot

they better do it pdq. The shit will hit the fan for he world economy in another week of they dont.

TRANSCRIPT:
Paul Krugman in Conversation with Phillips O’Brien

(recorded 3/12/26)



Krugman: I’m not sure we have the resources for Cuba, but yeah. So okay. We’re recording this a bit less than two weeks into this new war with Iran. There are a couple of specific areas I wanna talk about, but first, do you have anything to say that might be a useful starting point?

O’Brien: I don’t think they know what they’re doing. And I don’t think that they had a plan. He basically did what megalomaniac leaders do. They underestimate their enemy and they think they will do this quickly. It’s what Putin did to Ukraine in 2022. “We will just march in, we’ll do what we want. We have this great military.” He was boasting about American military power, and I think he just thought this would be relatively straightforward. He liked to refer to the Venezuela model and I think he thought, ‘okay, what I’m gonna do is blow up the leadership, kill the leadership, and then I’ll get a new leadership that will be much more compliant and do what I want. I don’t wanna actually bring any kind of freedom or democracy to the Iranian people.’ Because, by the way, he’s talking about a leader for the next five to 10 years. So he is actually talking about putting another authoritarian in place. And he thought it would happen, a little bit harder than Venezuela it seems, but not much harder. And he completely underestimated what he was taking on. And what he’s done is caught himself without a strategic plan. They never thought through the second and third order effects, they were nowhere down wondering what would happen if the Strait of Hormuz was cut and they couldn’t get anything out of the Gulf. And I think they’re just making it up now as they go along.

Oil prices are already up. They dipped a little bit when Trump acted like the war was almost over. They’re back up. We’ve seen real problems with nitrogen supplies and real trouble with helium supplies. And the irony is, the only country shipping out of the Gulf is Iran. Iranian shipments of oil are up, so Iran is sending everything it wants out of the Gulf and they’re sending oil directly to the Chinese. I think the Chinese are laughing at this, that they’re seeing the US unable to have its allies get their oil out.

Krugman: Yeah. There were Chinese chartered ships going through the Strait of Hormuz broadcasting in English. “We are a Chinese ship carrying Iranian oil,” and they were transiting the strait. But just to enlarge this a bit, there’s a lot of talk about how the Strait of Hormuz is 33 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, but in some ways I think that, as I understand, it’s irrelevant. Essentially, the entire Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf is easy drone range for the Iranians, right?

And at least one of Turkey's ship was allowed to pass.

https://apnews.com/article/ships-iran-war-attacks-china-hormuz-6f86d32df52abc738f9cdf5bc825cc20

Ships identify themselves as Chinese around Strait of Hormuz during Iran war to avoid attacks
By CHAN HO-HIM
Updated 6:31 AM CDT, March 12, 2026

HONG KONG (AP) — Some commercial ships near or in the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf have declared themselves as China-linked since the Iran war began, marine traffic data show, as their operators apparently try to reduce risks of being targeted in attacks.

At least eight vessels in or near the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman changed their declared destination signals to short messages such as “CHINA OWNER” or “CHINA OWNER&CREW,” according to data on the ship tracking platform MarineTraffic analyzed by The Associated Press.

“The main goal of vessels publicly identifying themselves as ‘Chinese’ while transiting the Gulf or the Strait of Hormuz is primarily to reduce the risk of being attacked rather than to facilitate passage through the strait itself,” said Ana Subasic, a trade risk analyst at data and analytics firm Kpler, which owns MarineTraffic.

Some of the vessels passed through the strait and headed for their destinations. Others were still in the area.

Iran and affiliated groups have generally avoided targeting ships linked to China, Subasic said, given China’s relatively neutral stance and stronger economic ties with Iran.

The word was, within a month of the straits being shutdown, it was very likely other countries would get involved in securing the strats, because global recessions aren't fun. This in no way means these countries are going to be marching to Trump's lead. I wouldn't be shocked if they strike their own deals.

But with so many countries, many hostile to each other, operating warships in the straits, bad things can happen. So, we will see. Meanwhile, the economic impact of this stupid war will continue.

Could come over here and kidnap the orange thing like he did to somebody else and we could let them. Especially if they promised to dropped him off at The Hague.

"Lookin' good there Donald, keep it up!"

Japan and Korea dont have blue water Navies to do an operation like that.

In summary, Fuck You, Rapist.

*sigh* In my dreams.

MS NOW EXCLUSIVE with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi

Mar 14, 2026 #Iran #StraitOfHormuz #MiddleEast
Ayman Mohyeldin spoke exclusively with Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for a wide-ranging conversation on the latest strikes, access through the Strait of Hormuz, and the status of Iran's new Supreme Leader.

2:25 IS THERE ANY SIGN that Iran is prepared to allow passage of the Straits of Hormuz? Will the Straits of Hormuz remain closed so long as this war continues?

Well, as a matter of fact, this Straits of Hormuz is open. It is only closed to the tankers and ships belonging to our enemies, to those who are attacking us and their allies. Others are free to pass.
Of course, many of them prefer not because of their, you know, security concerns. This has nothing to do with us.
And at the same time, there are many tankers and ships who are passing through the Strait of Hormuz, and I can say that the Strait is not closed, but it is only closed to American, Israeli ships and tankers and not to, to others.

Calling for help from all of these big countries looks WEAK!

Maybe these countries should ask the US to leave the Middle East. That might speed things up.